Sora's Quest

Prologue

There was blood on his hands. Blood and flowers and the sickly smell of spilled perfume.

Volcrian grasped the body, crumpled in front of the apothecary, cold and limp in the doorway. Petals were strewn around the cobblestone, glints of yellow, blue and white. It had been a horrible mistake. He had warned his brother—warned him, but he had not listened.

He had hoped to meet him here on these steps, to convince him to leave the city, to continue their lives together as solitary twins. But he was too late. Etienne's enemies had arrived first. He had warned his brother not to get too friendly; not to spread word of their practice. There were dangers in using magic, risks that one should not take, especially in a world where magic was thought dead.

“We're the only ones who can use it, Volcrian,” his brother had said, his eyes gleaming with a passionate light. “Don't worry! Humans are weak. It will be like the olden days, before the War, when Wolfies were powerful.”

But magic was dying for a reason....

Two days ago, a member of the Nobility had bought a potion from them. A tonic to make a woman fall in love. But young Etienne had botched the tonic; had forgotten a key ingredient, and it hadn't worked as planned.

He had read of the woman's death in the papers: a well-respected Noble Lady, suddenly taken by a mysterious illness. The paper had insinuated poison. With a gut-sinking dread, he had immediately known the truth.

And, knowing the Nobility, there would be repercussions. He had raced back to the apothecary... but not fast enough.

Volcrian's nostrils flared as he touched his brother's face, and then the ground, the sticky red pool. The blood crowned his fingers like expensive paint.

Something trembled within him. It crawled from the tips of his fingers to the back of his throat. He could feel his brother's blood like a rush of heat, an itch, a knowledge carried deeper than his bones. On the outside he was silent, calm, still... but inside, magic surged through him, thick like black water. He drowned in it.

Who did this?

Suddenly Volcrian didn't see the apothecary, nor the cobblestone street before him; his eyes clouded over, turning from ice blue to cold silver. A vision bloomed in front of him of his brother's final seconds. He saw the bushes across from their shop, the long stretch of paved road, a snatch of stars high overhead, twinkling in the solemn night, and then—a shadow. A knife. A face. The last image that had flashed before Etienne's eyes: the killer.

Volcrian memorized what he saw. A man dressed entirely in black, a veil hiding the lower half of his face. The knife: long, wicked, curved to a vicious point. The man fleeing down the road.

Then the vision slowly faded, leaving him dizzy, momentarily disoriented. He blinked, eyes dry from staring, his nose filled with the fresh scent of his brother's blood. He glanced down at the body again and watched the slowly widening pool on the ground. His brother had not been dead long, practically minutes. It would take no longer to catch up with the killer.

Volcrian leapt to his feet, leaving his brother still and lifeless on the ground. There was no time for funeral rites; he would return for that after his revenge.

He took off running in the same direction the assassin had fled, racing down the cobbled side streets. His body thrummed with energy, with the ancient power of his race. This magic was his birthright, his heritage—his blood—more natural than learned. His eyes were lined with silver, and he could see the assassin's trail like a bright light against the ground. It led straight and true, no alleys, no jumped fences. Perhaps the killer did not know he was being followed.